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Beware: Fake Facebook Job Ads Spreading 'Ov3r_Stealer' to Steal Crypto and Credentials

By Newsroom
Threat actors are leveraging bogus Facebook job advertisements as a lure to trick prospective targets into installing a new Windows-based stealer malware codenamed Ov3r_Stealer. "This malware is designed to steal credentials and crypto wallets and send those to a Telegram channel that the threat actor monitors," Trustwave SpiderLabs said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Ov3r_Stealer

Malicious Ads on Google Target Chinese Users with Fake Messaging Apps

By Newsroom
Chinese-speaking users have been targeted by malicious Google ads for restricted messaging apps like Telegram as part of an ongoing malvertising campaign. "The threat actor is abusing Google advertiser accounts to create malicious ads and pointing them to pages where unsuspecting users will download Remote Administration Trojan (RATs) instead," Malwarebytes' Jérôme Segura said in a

Using Google Search to Find Software Can Be Risky

By BrianKrebs

Google continues to struggle with cybercriminals running malicious ads on its search platform to trick people into downloading booby-trapped copies of popular free software applications. The malicious ads, which appear above organic search results and often precede links to legitimate sources of the same software, can make searching for software on Google a dicey affair.

Google says keeping users safe is a top priority, and that the company has a team of thousands working around the clock to create and enforce their abuse policies. And by most accounts, the threat from bad ads leading to backdoored software has subsided significantly compared to a year ago.

But cybercrooks are constantly figuring out ingenious ways to fly beneath Google’s anti-abuse radar, and new examples of bad ads leading to malware are still too common.

For example, a Google search earlier this week for the free graphic design program FreeCAD produced the following result, which shows that a “Sponsored” ad at the top of the search results is advertising the software available from freecad-us[.]org. Although this website claims to be the official FreeCAD website, that honor belongs to the result directly below — the legitimate freecad.org.

How do we know freecad-us[.]org is malicious? A review at DomainTools.com show this domain is the newest (registered Jan. 19, 2024) of more than 200 domains at the Internet address 93.190.143[.]252 that are confusingly similar to popular software titles, including dashlane-project[.]com, filezillasoft[.]com, keepermanager[.]com, and libreofficeproject[.]com.

Some of the domains at this Netherlands host appear to be little more than software review websites that steal content from established information sources in the IT world, including Gartner, PCWorld, Slashdot and TechRadar.

Other domains at 93.190.143[.]252 do serve actual software downloads, but none of them are likely to be malicious if one visits the sites through direct navigation. If one visits openai-project[.]org and downloads a copy of the popular Windows desktop management application Rainmeter, for example, the file that is downloaded has the same exact file signature as the real Rainmeter installer available from rainmeter.net.

But this is only a ruse, says Tom Hegel, principal threat researcher at the security firm Sentinel One. Hegel has been tracking these malicious domains for more than a year, and he said the seemingly benign software download sites will periodically turn evil, swapping out legitimate copies of popular software titles with backdoored versions that will allow cybercriminals to remotely commander the systems.

“They’re using automation to pull in fake content, and they’re rotating in and out of hosting malware,” Hegel said, noting that the malicious downloads may only be offered to visitors who come from specific geographic locations, like the United States. “In the malicious ad campaigns we’ve seen tied to this group, they would wait until the domains gain legitimacy on the search engines, and then flip the page for a day or so and then flip back.”

In February 2023, Hegel co-authored a report on this same network, which Sentinel One has dubbed MalVirt (a play on “malvertising”). They concluded that the surge in malicious ads spoofing various software products was directly responsible for a surge in malware infections from infostealer trojans like IcedID, Redline Stealer, Formbook and AuroraStealer.

Hegel noted that the spike in malicious software-themed ads came not long after Microsoft started blocking by default Office macros in documents downloaded from the Internet. He said the volume of the current malicious ad campaigns from this group appears to be relatively low compared to a year ago.

“It appears to be same campaign continuing,” Hegel said. “Last January, every Google search for ‘Autocad’ led to something bad. Now, it’s like they’re paying Google to get one out of every dozen of searches. My guess it’s still continuing because of the up-and-down [of the] domains hosting malware and then looking legitimate.”

Several of the websites at this Netherlands host (93.190.143[.]252) are currently blocked by Google’s Safebrowsing technology, and labeled with a conspicuous red warning saying the website will try to foist malware on visitors who ignore the warning and continue.

But it remains a mystery why Google has not similarly blocked more than 240+ other domains at this same host, or else removed them from its search index entirely. Especially considering there is nothing else but these domains hosted at that Netherlands IP address, and because they have all remained at that address for the past year.

In response to questions from KrebsOnSecurity, Google said maintaining a safe ads ecosystem and keeping malware off of its platforms is a priority across Google.

“Bad actors often employ sophisticated measures to conceal their identities and evade our policies and enforcement, sometimes showing Google one thing and users something else,” Google said in a written statement. “We’ve reviewed the ads in question, removed those that violated our policies, and suspended the associated accounts. We’ll continue to monitor and apply our protections.”

Google says it removed 5.2 billion ads in 2022, and restricted more than 4.3 billion ads and suspended over 6.7 million advertiser accounts. The company’s latest ad safety report says Google in 2022 blocked or removed 1.36 billion advertisements for violating its abuse policies.

Some of the domains referenced in this story were included in Sentinel One’s February 2023 report, but dozens more have been added since, such as those spoofing the official download sites for Corel Draw, Github Desktop, Roboform and Teamviewer.

This October 2023 report on the FreeCAD user forum came from a user who reported downloading a copy of the software from freecadsoft[.]com after seeing the site promoted at the top of a Google search result for “freecad.” Almost a month later, another FreeCAD user reported getting stung by the same scam.

“This got me,” FreeCAD forum user “Matterform” wrote on Nov. 19, 2023. “Please leave a report with Google so it can flag it. They paid Google for sponsored posts.”

Sentinel One’s report didn’t delve into the “who” behind this ongoing MalVirt campaign, and there are precious few clues that point to attribution. All of the domains in question were registered through webnic.cc, and several of them display a placeholder page saying the site is ready for content. Viewing the HTML source of these placeholder pages shows many of the hidden comments in the code are in Cyrillic.

Trying to track the crooks using Google’s Ad Transparency tools didn’t lead far. The ad transparency record for the malicious ad featuring freecad-us[.]org (in the screenshot above) shows that the advertising account used to pay for the ad has only run one previous ad through Google search: It advertised a wedding photography website in New Zealand.

The apparent owner of that photography website did not respond to requests for comment, but it’s also likely his Google advertising account was hacked and used to run these malicious ads.

Atomic Stealer Gets an Upgrade - Targeting Mac Users with Encrypted Payload

By Newsroom
Cybersecurity researchers have identified an updated version of a macOS information stealer called Atomic (or AMOS), indicating that the threat actors behind the malware are actively enhancing its capabilities. "It looks like Atomic Stealer was updated around mid to late December 2023, where its developers introduced payload encryption in an effort to bypass detection rules,"

Beware: Scam-as-a-Service Aiding Cybercriminals in Crypto Wallet-Draining Attacks

By Newsroom
Cybersecurity researchers are warning about an increase in phishing attacks that are capable of draining cryptocurrency wallets. "These threats are unique in their approach, targeting a wide range of blockchain networks, from Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain to Polygon, Avalanche, and almost 20 other networks by using a crypto wallet-draining technique," Check Point researchers Oded Vanunu,

New Malvertising Campaign Distributing PikaBot Disguised as Popular Software

By Newsroom
The malware loader known as PikaBot is being distributed as part of a malvertising campaign targeting users searching for legitimate software like AnyDesk. "PikaBot was previously only distributed via malspam campaigns similarly to QakBot and emerged as one of the preferred payloads for a threat actor known as TA577," Malwarebytes' Jérôme Segura said. The malware family,

Microsoft Warns of Malvertising Scheme Spreading CACTUS Ransomware

By Newsroom
Microsoft has warned of a new wave of CACTUS ransomware attacks that leverage malvertising lures to deploy DanaBot as an initial access vector. The DanaBot infections led to "hands-on-keyboard activity by ransomware operator Storm-0216 (Twisted Spider, UNC2198), culminating in the deployment of CACTUS ransomware," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said in a series of posts on X (

Beware: Malicious Google Ads Trick WinSCP Users into Installing Malware

By Newsroom
Threat actors are leveraging manipulated search results and bogus Google ads that trick users who are looking to download legitimate software such as WinSCP into installing malware instead. Cybersecurity company Securonix is tracking the ongoing activity under the name SEO#LURKER. “The malicious advertisement directs the user to a compromised WordPress website gameeweb[.]com, which redirects the

New Malvertising Campaign Uses Fake Windows News Portal to Distribute Malicious Installers

By Newsroom
A new malvertising campaign has been found to employ fake sites that masquerade as legitimate Windows news portal to propagate a malicious installer for a popular system profiling tool called CPU-Z. "This incident is a part of a larger malvertising campaign that targets other utilities like Notepad++, Citrix, and VNC Viewer as seen in its infrastructure (domain names) and cloaking templates used

New Jupyter Infostealer Version Emerges with Sophisticated Stealth Tactics

By Newsroom
An updated version of an information stealer malware known as Jupyter has resurfaced with "simple yet impactful changes" that aim to stealthily establish a persistent foothold on compromised systems. "The team has discovered new waves of Jupyter Infostealer attacks which leverage PowerShell command modifications and signatures of private keys in attempts to pass off the malware as a legitimately

Trojanized PyCharm Software Version Delivered via Google Search Ads

By Newsroom
A new malvertising campaign has been observed capitalizing on a compromised website to promote spurious versions of PyCharm on Google search results by leveraging Dynamic Search Ads. "Unbeknownst to the site owner, one of their ads was automatically created to promote a popular program for Python developers, and visible to people doing a Google search for it," Jérôme Segura, director of threat

Malvertising Campaign Targets Brazil's PIX Payment System with GoPIX Malware

By Newsroom
The popularity of Brazil's PIX instant payment system has made it a lucrative target for threat actors looking to generate illicit profits using a new malware called GoPIX. Kaspersky, which has been tracking the active campaign since December 2022, said the attacks are pulled off using malicious ads that are served when potential victims search for "WhatsApp web" on search engines. "The

Malvertisers Using Google Ads to Target Users Searching for Popular Software

By Newsroom
Details have emerged about a malvertising campaign that leverages Google Ads to direct users searching for popular software to fictitious landing pages and distribute next-stage payloads. Malwarebytes, which discovered the activity, said it's "unique in its way to fingerprint users and distribute time sensitive payloads." The attack singles out users searching for Notepad++ and PDF converters to

Mac Users Beware: Malvertising Campaign Spreads Atomic Stealer macOS Malware

By THN
A new malvertising campaign has been observed distributing an updated version of a macOS stealer malware called Atomic Stealer (or AMOS), indicating that it’s being actively maintained by its author. An off-the-shelf Golang malware available for $1,000 per month, Atomic Stealer first came to light in April 2023. Shortly after that, new variants with an expanded set of information-gathering

Vietnamese Cybercriminals Targeting Facebook Business Accounts with Malvertising

By THN
Malicious actors associated with the Vietnamese cybercrime ecosystem are leveraging advertising-as-a-vector on social media platforms such as Meta-owned Facebook to distribute malware. “Threat actors have long used fraudulent ads as a vector to target victims with scams, malvertising, and more,” WithSecure researcher Mohammad Kazem Hassan Nejad said. “And with businesses now leveraging the reach

WoofLocker Toolkit Hides Malicious Codes in Images to Run Tech Support Scams

By THN
Cybersecurity researchers have detailed an updated version of an advanced fingerprinting and redirection toolkit called WoofLocker that's engineered to conduct tech support scams. The sophisticated traffic redirection scheme was first documented by Malwarebytes in January 2020, leveraging JavaScript embedded in compromised websites to perform anti-bot and web traffic filtering checks to serve

New Malvertising Campaign Distributing Trojanized IT Tools via Google and Bing Search Ads

By THN
A new malvertising campaign has been observed leveraging ads on Google Search and Bing to target users seeking IT tools like AnyDesk, Cisco AnyConnect VPN, and WinSCP, and trick them into downloading trojanized installers with an aim to breach enterprise networks and likely carry out future ransomware attacks. Dubbed Nitrogen, the "opportunistic" activity is designed to deploy second-stage

BlackCat Operators Distributing Ransomware Disguised as WinSCP via Malvertising

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Threat actors associated with the BlackCat ransomware have been observed employing malvertising tricks to distribute rogue installers of the WinSCP file transfer application. "Malicious actors used malvertising to distribute a piece of malware via cloned webpages of legitimate organizations," Trend Micro researchers said in an analysis published last week. "In this case, the distribution

Over 60K Adware Apps Posing as Cracked Versions of Popular Apps Target Android Devices

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Thousands of adware apps for Android have been found to masquerade as cracks or modded versions of popular applications to serve unwanted ads to users as part of a campaign ongoing since October 2022. "The campaign is designed to aggressively push adware to Android devices with the purpose to drive revenue," Bitdefender said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. "However, the threat

LOBSHOT: A Stealthy, Financial Trojan and Info Stealer Delivered through Google Ads

By Ravie Lakshmanan
In yet another instance of how threat actors are abusing Google Ads to serve malware, a threat actor has been observed leveraging the technique to deliver a new Windows-based financial trojan and information stealer called LOBSHOT. "LOBSHOT continues to collect victims while staying under the radar," Elastic Security Labs researcher Daniel Stepanic said in an analysis published last week. "One

Crypto-Stealing OpcJacker Malware Targets Users with Fake VPN Service

By Ravie Lakshmanan
A piece of new information-stealing malware called OpcJacker has been spotted in the wild since the second half of 2022 as part of a malvertising campaign. "OpcJacker's main functions include keylogging, taking screenshots, stealing sensitive data from browsers, loading additional modules, and replacing cryptocurrency addresses in the clipboard for hijacking purposes," Trend Micro researchers

FormBook Malware Spreads via Malvertising Using MalVirt Loader to Evade Detection

By Ravie Lakshmanan
An ongoing malvertising campaign is being used to distribute virtualized .NET loaders that are designed to deploy the FormBook information-stealing malware. "The loaders, dubbed MalVirt, use obfuscated virtualization for anti-analysis and evasion along with the Windows Process Explorer driver for terminating processes," SentinelOne researchers Aleksandar Milenkoski and Tom Hegel said in a

Massive Ad Fraud Scheme Targeted Over 11 Million Devices with 1,700 Spoofed Apps

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Researchers have shut down an "expansive" ad fraud scheme that spoofed more than 1,700 applications from 120 publishers and impacted roughly 11 million devices.  "VASTFLUX was a malvertising attack that injected malicious JavaScript code into digital ad creatives, allowing the fraudsters to stack numerous invisible video ad players behind one another and register ad views," fraud prevention firm

New Malvertising Campaign via Google Ads Targets Users Searching for Popular Software

By Ravie Lakshmanan
Users searching for popular software are being targeted by a new malvertising campaign that abuses Google Ads to serve trojanized variants that deploy malware, such as Raccoon Stealer and Vidar. The activity makes use of seemingly credible websites with typosquatted domain names that are surfaced on top of Google search results in the form of malicious ads by hijacking searches for specific
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