8 More Chrome Extensions Hijacked to Target 4.8 Million Users

Google's Chrome web browser Extensions are under attack with a series of developers being hacked within last one month.

Almost two weeks ago, we reported how unknown attackers managed to compromise the Chrome Web Store account of a developer team and hijacked Copyfish extension, and then modified it to distribute spam correspondence to users.

Just two days after that incident, some unknown attackers then hijacked another popular extension'Web Developer' and then updated it to directly inject advertisements into the web browser of over its 1 million users.

After Chris Pederick, the creator of 'Web Developer' Chrome extension that offers various web development tools to its users, reported to Proofpoint that his extension had been compromised, the security vendor analysed the issue and found further add-ons in the Chrome Store that had also been altered.

According to the latest report published by the researchers at Proofpoint on Monday, the expanded list of compromised Chrome Extensions are as below:

• Chrometana (1.1.3)
• Infinity New Tab (3.12.3)
• CopyFish (2.8.5)
• Web Paint (1.2.1)
• Social Fixer (20.1.1)

Proofpoint researcher Kafeine also believes Chrome extensions TouchVPN and Betternet VPN were also compromised in the same way at the end of June.

In all the above cases, some unknown attackers first gained access to the developers' Google web accounts by sending out phishing emails with malicious links to steal account credentials.

Once the attackers gained access to the accounts, either they hijacked their respective extensions and then modified them to perform malicious tasks, or they add malicious Javascript code to them in an attempt to hijack traffic and expose users to fake ads and password theft in order to generate revenue.

In the case of the Copyfish extension, the attackers even moved the whole extension to one of its developers' accounts, preventing the software company from removing the infected extension from the Chrome store, even after being spotted compromised behaviour of the extension.

"Threat actors continue to look for new ways to drive traffic to affiliate programs and effectively surface malicious advertisements to users," researchers concluded. "In the cases described here, they are leveraging compromised Chrome extensions to hijack traffic and substitute advertisements on victims' browsers." 

"Once they obtain developer credentials through emailed phishing campaigns, they can publish malicious versions of legitimate extensions."

At this time, it is unclear who is behind the hijackings of Chrome Web extensions.

The best way to protect yourself from such attacks is always to be suspicious of uninvited documents sent over a phishing email and never click on links inside those documents unless verifying the source.

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Cyberspies Are Using Leaked NSA Hacking Tools to Spy On Hotels Guests

An infamous Russian-linked cyber-espionage group has been found re-using the same leaked NSA hacking tool that was deployed in the WannaCry and NotPetya outbreaks—this time to target Wi-Fi networks to spy on hotel guests in several European countries.

Security researchers at FireEye have uncovered an ongoing campaign that remotely steals credentials from high-value guests using Wi-Fi networks at European hotels and attributed it to the Fancy Bearhacking group.

Fancy Bear—also known as APT28, Sofacy, Sednit, and Pawn Storm—has been operating since at least 2007 and also been accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Clinton Campaign in an attempt to influence the U.S. presidential election.

The newly-discovered campaign is also exploiting the Windows SMB exploit (CVE-2017-0143), called EternalBlue, which was one of many exploits allegedly used by the NSA for surveillance and leaked by the Shadow Brokers in April.

EternalBlue is a security vulnerability which leverages a version of Windows' Server Message Block (SMB) version 1 networking protocol to laterally spread across networks and also allowed the WannaCry and Petya ransomware to spread across the world quickly.

Since the EternalBlue code is available for anyone to use, cyber criminals are widely trying to use the exploit to make their malware more powerful.

Just last week, a new version of credential stealing TrickBot banking Trojan was found leveraging SMB to spread locally across networks, though the trojan was not leveraging EternalBlue at that time.

However, researchers have now found someone deploying the exploit to upgrade their attack.

"To spread through the hospitality company's network, APT28 used a version of the EternalBlue SMB exploit," FireEye researchers write. "This is the first time we have seen APT28 incorporate this exploit into their intrusions."

Researchers have seen ongoing attacks targeting a number of companies in the hospitality sector, including hotels in at least seven countries in Europe and one Middle Eastern country.

Here's How the Attack is Carried Out

The attacks began with a spear phishing email sent to one of the hotel employees. The email contains a malicious document named "Hotel_Reservation_Form.doc," which uses macros to decode and deploy GameFish, malware known to be used by Fancy Bear.

Once installed on the targeted hotel's network, GameFish uses the EternalBlue SMB exploit to laterally spread across the hotel network and find systems that control both guest and internal Wi-Fi networks.

Once under control, the malware deploys Responder, an open source penetration testing tool created by Laurent Gaffie of SpiderLabs, for NetBIOS Name Service (NBT-NS) poisoning in order to steal credentials sent over the wireless network.

While the hacking group carried out the attack against the hotel network, researchers believe that the group could also directly target "hotel guests of interest"—generally business and government personnel who travel in a foreign country.

The researchers revealed one such incident that occurred in 2016 where Fancy Bear accessed the computer and Outlook Web Access (OWA) account of a guest staying at a hotel in Europe, 12 hours after victim connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi network.

This is not the only attack that apparently aimed at guests of hotels. South Korea-nexus Fallout Team (also known as DarkHotel) has previously carried out such attacks against Asian hotels to steal information from senior executives from large global companies during their business trips.

Duqu 2.0 malware also found targeting the WiFi networks of European hotels used by participants in the Iranian nuclear negotiations. Also, high-profile people visiting Russia and China may have their laptops and other electronic devices accessed.

The easiest way to protect yourself is to avoid connecting to hotel Wi-Fi networks or any other public or untrusted networks, and instead, use your mobile device hotspot to get access to the Internet.

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