AZORult Malware Abusing RDP Protocol To Steal the Data by Establish a Remote Desktop Connection

Sophisticated AZORult Malware emerges in a new form with advanced information stealing modules that capable of stealing sensitive information from infected computers.

AZORult is one of the well-known malware that often sold in Russian forums for the higher price ($100) , since this malware contains a broad range of persistent functionality.

It uses .bit domains in the command & control server that provide a high range of anonymity, which makes difficult to detect its C2 server activity.

Also, malware authors are spreading this AZORult Malware in another underground forum due to the malware nature, that makes buyers can easily handle it without any special skills.

Currently discovered AZORult module called it as AZORult++ and it collects the various information from the infected computer including browser history, login credentials, cookies, files from folders as specified by the C&C server and crypto wallet files.

Apart from the infection, it acts as a loader and drops the other malware in which distribute primarily to target the users in Russia and India

AZORult++ Malware Infection Process

Unlike other malware currently detected AZORult version not actually written in Delphi but it was written in C++ and the researchers called this version is AZORult++.

Initially, once the malware gets infected, it starts check the system language by call to the GetUserDefaultLangID() function.

AZORult++ stop its execution if the infected system belongs to the language such as Russian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Georgian, Kazakh, Tajik, Turkmen, or Uzbek.

According to Kaspersky analysis, A more detailed analysis reveals that the C++ version is deficient compared to AZORult 3.3, the last iteration to be sold. In particular, there is no loader functionality and no support for stealing saved passwords from many of the browsers supported by AZORult 3.3. 

Apart from this, both AZORult 3.3, AZORult++ using an XOR operation with a 3-byte key to encrypt data sent to the C&C server.

Another interesting fact is that the malware steal the data from the RAM
and does not write to the hard drive to keep it’s actions hidden.

Remote Deskop Connection via RDP protocol

Last but not least, apart from the other interesting functions, AZORult++
ability to establish a remote connection to the desktop.

Initially, it creates a normal user account using the NetUserAdd() function before adding into the admin group.

“Also AZORult++ capable of hide the new account by setting the value of the Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\Userlist registry key to 0.”. Likewise, through setting registry key values, a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connection is allowed:

Later ShellExecuteW() to open a port to establish a remote connection to the desktop and finally the infected computer is ready to accept the incoming RDP connection.

Once the connected will be successfully established, victim’s IP address and account information — to connect to the infected computer and seize complete control of it.

Based on the leaked malware file likely indicate that the malware is still in development.

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IoC

C&C servers
http://ravor.ac[.]ug
http://daticho.ac[.]ug

MD5
08EB8F2E441C26443EB9ABE5A93CD942
5B26880F80A00397BC379CAF5CADC564
B0EC3E594D20B9D38CC8591BAFF0148B
FE8938F0BAAF90516A90610F6E210484