Cybereason, the leader in future-ready attack protection, today announced that the Cybereason Nocturnus Team has identified an active campaign targeting customers of a larger e-commerce platform with newly identified multi-stage malware that evades antivirus tools dubbed Chaes. The info-stealing malware is designed to harvest sensitive consumer information, including login credentials, credit card numbers and other financial information.
E-commerce platforms have been a favored target for cybercriminals, and the sharply increased volume of online shopping spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic have made attacks potentially even more profitable. According to data from the recent IBM U.S. Retail Index released in August of this year, “the pandemic has accelerated the shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by roughly five years,” and “e-commerce is projected to grow by nearly 20% in 2020” (TechCrunch).
The Cybereason Nocturnus Team has been tracking threat actors leveraging the previously undetected Chaes malware to primarily target Brazilian customers of the largest e-commerce company in Latin America, MercadoLivre. The researchers noted that the Latin American cybercrime scene has evolved a great deal in recent years, with some of the more notorious malware variants gaining prominence in just the last year, including Grandoreiro, Ursa and Astaroth.
These Latin American operations typically demonstrate some unique features when it comes to the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) employed, as well as how the malware is propagated to infect victims. These trends include the use of .MSI files as an initial way to start the infection chain, the use of Delphi as the preferred language to code the malware, extensive use of LOLBins to execute content, and the downloading of legitimate tools to expand the malware’s capabilities and aid in evasion of antivirus software.
Key Findings:
“Threat actors put a great deal of time, resources and effort into choosing their targets for criminal operations such as this, and a return on their investment is always top of mind. Undoubtedly, the dramatic increase in the volume of online shopping transactions has not escaped their notice, so it’s not surprising to see new and ever-more sophisticated malware variants emerging to take advantage of the current circumstances,” said Lior Div, Cybereason co-founder and CEO. “Individuals should be vigilant when it comes to cyber hygiene to avoid malware infections in general, and should maintain situational awareness when engaged in online shopping or banking to avoid becoming the victim attackers trying to take advantage of the pandemic and the recent increase in online financial activities.”
The full report, titled Chaes: Novel Malware Targeting Latin American E-Commerce, is available for download HERE.
About Cybereason
Cybereason is the champion for today’s cyber defenders providing future-ready attack protection that unifies security from the endpoint, to the enterprise, to everywhere the battle moves. The Cybereason Defense Platform combines the industry’s top-rated detection and response (EDR and XDR), next-gen anti-virus (NGAV), and proactive threat hunting to deliver context-rich analysis of every element of a Malop (malicious operation). The result: defenders can end cyber attacks from endpoints to everywhere. Cybereason is a privately held, international company headquartered in Boston with customers in more than 30 countries.
Learn more: https://www.cybereason.com/
Media Contacts:
Bill Keeler
Senior Director, Global Public Relations
Cybereason
bill.keeler@cybereason.com
(929) 259-3261