16Shop – Malware-as-a-service Phishing Toolkit Attack PayPal Users With Anti-Detection Techniques

A prolific phishing kit distribution network dubbed “16Shop” believed to be active since 2018 and developed by a hacking group called the “Indonesian Cyber Army.”

It’s a huge first attack targeting Apple kits and then attacked Amazon customers before the prime day in 2019.

The analysis also explained that 16Shop is using three different anti-bot and anti-indexing features. 

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16Shop Phishing Kit Service

16Shop offers services that are similar to software-as-a-service (SaaS), where the users can purchase the kits and distribute them for a cost.

Earlier this January, ZeroFOX Alpha obtained a phishing kit that targets PayPal customers along with Apple and Amazon, also traces are indicating the possibility of an American Express kit.

This indicates that threats actors behind the Phishing Kit Distribution network continuously upgrading its features and attack methods.

The latest version of 16Shop obtained by the ZeroFOX Alpha Team includes several features such as an ability to block automated crawlers for security vendors, web indexers and Antibot function to check the visitor is a bot or not.

“The antibot website is in English as well as Indonesian. This is an interesting observation as the 16Shop authors have been attributed to be Indonesian, and there is Indonesian littered throughout their code.”

Here is the new products panel page

The new PayPal kits are designed aiming to steal the users Personally Identifiable Information as much as possible.

The operators of the phishing kit are provided with a panel to track the user click’s, login, card details, banking details, and bot detected.

The Phishing kit sends the collected information to its operators via SMTP to their email box, for now, the PayPal kit only supports few languages only.

This Phishing kit lets any low-level technical operators launch sophisticated attacks.

“Phishing kits are becoming more popular, as they allow an ecosystem where more technical cybercriminals sell services and reduce the barrier to entry for less technical operators. These kit authors use product features and marketing tactics from SaaS products to advertise, sell, deploy, maintain and update their products. ” Researcher said.

Also Read: Phishing Attack Prevention: Best 10 Ways To Prevent Email Phishing Attacks