In the summer of 2023, a multinational law enforcement operation caused major disruption to the botnet and malware known as QakBot, aka Qbot & pinkslipbot. Now the malware is back and being used in a campaign targeting the hospitality industry.
QakBot was first detected in 2008 and was primarily a banking Trojan which was used to steal financial information from infected devices; however, the malware has evolved over the years and its capabilities have been significantly enhanced. Check Point researchers have described the malware as “a Swiss army knife” due to its extensive capabilities. QakBot can steal financial information, browser data, and has keylogging capabilities, allowing it to steal credentials and other sensitive information. Infected devices are added to a botnet that can be used for a range of nefarious activities, and the malware also serves as a downloader and can deliver other malicious payloads, including ransomware. QakBot has previously partnered with major ransomware groups including Egregor, REvil, Conti, and ALPHV/BlackCat.
At the time of the takedown, QakBot had been installed on more than 700,000 computers worldwide. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the August takedown was “the largest U.S.-led financial and technical disruption of a botnet infrastructure leveraged by cybercriminals to commit ransomware, financial fraud, and other cyber-enabled criminal activity.” The law enforcement operation resulted in access being gained to the botnet’s encryption keys that were used for malware communication The botnet was hijacked and a custom Windows DLL was pushed out to all infected devices, which terminated the malware and disabled the botnet. These takedowns are, unfortunately, only temporary. As was the case with the takedown of the Emotet botnet, the threat actors simply rebuild their infrastructure.
QakBot malware is primarily distributed via phishing emails and the first QakBot malware campaign since the takedown was detected on Monday. The latest campaign uses an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) themed lure, where an IRS employee is impersonated. As is common in these campaigns, there is little body text in the emails, apart from the IRS logo and contact information. The emails contain a PDF attachment called GuestListVegas.pdf, and the subject line is “clients information”.
The recipient is told that they cannot preview the PDF file and must download it; however, the file they download is an MSI installer that will launch QakBot in the memory. Microsoft confirmed that this version of QakBot has not been seen before. While this appears to only be a relatively small campaign, distribution is expected to be significantly ramped up. In addition to this method of distribution, the QakBot operators have previously used OneNote files, Office files with malicious macros, Windows shortcut files, ISO attachments, and other executables, some of which have been known to exploit unpatched vulnerabilities.
Defending against attacks requires a combination of measures to block the initial access vector, the most important of which are an advanced spam filter – such as SpamTitan – security awareness training, and phishing simulations. A spam filter will block the majority of malicious emails to reduce the number of threats that are delivered to inboxes. By providing ongoing security awareness training to the workforce, employees will learn how to recognize, avoid, and report potential threats. Phishing simulations are an important part of the training process and allow employees to be tested to determine whether they are applying their training. When a phishing simulation is failed it can be turned into a training opportunity. With the SafeTitan platform, training is automated and delivered in real-time in response to failed phishing simulations.
For more information on advanced spam filtering and workforce cybersecurity training, give the TitanHQ team a call.