A new spam campaign was spotted over the weekend, infecting victims with the TeamSpy data-stealing malware and giving cyber criminals full access to the compromised computers.
Heimdal Security found that many of the victims are ordinary users, but some appear to be high profile industrial, research, or diplomatic targets.
Part of the attack is based on misusing the legitimate TeamViewer remote access tool, including a keylogger and a TeamViewer VPN. This attack relies on social engineering and tricks the victims into installing the TeamSpy malware. Attackers use DLL hijacking with tricks a legitimate software program to perform unauthorized actions.
The victim first receives a spam email claiming to have an eFax attached, but when opened, the file triggers the accompanying .exe file to be activated, causing the malicious TeamSpy code to be dropped onto the victim’s computer as a malicious DLL.
From there, a TeamViewer session started by the attacks will be invisible to the victim. Attackers are able to perform various forms of abuse against the services that the logged in user runs on their computer, with the ability to circumvent two-factor authentication and can also give cyber thieves
Phishing attacks have become increasingly popular over the last few years. Today’s cyber criminals use phishing tactics to evade traditional spam and malware filters in order to wreak havoc on corporate infrastructures.
Our CTO Mark Kedgley comments: “The only thing that is a certainty in these increasingly complex circumstances is that the risk of falling victim to a breach is a constant. A two-pronged approach is the only way to go – get layered defenses in place (and remember, don’t overlook the newer Microsoft features like EMET and AppLocker) but also back it up with real-time host intrusion detection through File Integrity Monitoring (FIM), ensuring that if a cyber-attack proves successful at the very least you get to know about it.
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