Dangerous PANDA Banking Malware Spreads Through Phishing Attacks Targets Banks, Cryptocurrency Sites and Social Media

The PANDA Malware first identified in the year 2016 by Fox IT, the malware primarily focused on banking sectors. With the last February, the campaign was heavily focused on cryptocurrency sites and the three active campaigns currently focusing on social media(Twitter and Facebook).

According to F5 researchers, the four active campaigns that appear between February to May of 2018 uses the same botnet but having different targets and C&C servers.

But still, the panda malware still focussing financial sectors, due to the recent hype with cryptocurrency it expands it’s targeted to online cryptocurrency exchanges, also it focuses Social media, search, email, and adult sites.

The malware campaigns primarily focussed on the Japanese financial organizations and all the campaign in the month of May targeted social media, search, email, e-commerce, and tech providers.

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Researchers said, “we analyzed February campaign marked as botnet “onore2” targets Italian Financial Services and Cryptocurrency Sites Equally. The majority of targets are financial services 51% and cryptocurrency targets 49% worldwide.

The last campaign marked Botnet “2.6.8” Targets US Financials and the campaign hits 8 industries 76% of which were US financial organizations, 8% Canadian financial services, 6% cryptocurrency sites, 4% social media, 3% search and email and 1% payroll sites.

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The May Campaign Botnet “2.6.8” also Targets Japanese Financials, 52% Japanese financial services, 14% search and email providers, 9% social media, 10% adult sites, 5% tech provider, 5% eCommerce, 5% Entertainment.

With the third parallel campaign Botnet “Cosmos3” targets financial institutions in Latin America. The campaign primarily focuses on financial institutions in Argentina, Columbia, and Ecuador followed by the social media, search and tech provider.

F5 concludes that “Panda’s expansion beyond traditional banking targets, the act of simultaneous campaigns targeting several regions around the world and industries indicates these are highly active threat actors. we highly recommend all businesses maintain up-to-date patches on endpoints and ensure AV controls are continuously updated.”