USCYBERCOM Warned that Hackers Exploiting Microsoft Outlook Security Vulnerability to Deliver Malware

USCYBERCOM published an alert that hackers were exploiting the CVE-2017-11774 Microsoft Outlook Security Vulnerability to deliver malware using an HTTPS domain.

Microsoft already patched the vulnerability in 2017 and the USCYBERCOM alert refers to the ongoing campaign that exploiting CVE-2017-11774. Users are advised to ensure that they have patched the vulnerability.

USCYBERCOM shared a number of malware samples through Virustotal, and the malware delivered using the domain customermgmt[.]net.

The patched vulnerability resides in how the outlook handles the objects in memory, successful exploitation of the vulnerability allows an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on the vulnerable machine.

In December 2018 FireEye reported that Iran based hacker group APT33 exploiting the vulnerability using stolen credentials and RULER’s module. The campaign targets government agencies and financial, retail, media, and education sectors.

“The executables uploaded by CyberCom appear to be related to Shamoon2 activity, which took place around January of 2017. These executables are both downloaders that utilize PowerShell to load the PUPY RAT. Additionally, CyberCom uploaded three tools likely used for the manipulation and of exploited web servers,” said Brandon Levene, head of applied intelligence at Chronicle.

“Each tool has a slightly different purpose, but there is a clear capability on the part of the attacker to interact with servers they may have compromised. If the observation of CVE-2017-11774 holds true.”

APT33 is an Iranian based group, known for explicitly targeting corporate networks, and it compromised around 50 organizations in different countries since 2015.

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Indicator of Compromise

SHA256
0515cd2ba84a5da10c63cadae06f04d778d66c054b9184edb57be6ea95a1095b
1d4f9fadc9599cdee0901b5150230a35387dea95e3fe31819452bfcfd04b0d12
28ebfe86217ed36ead5b429cadcd005338a0ae6207119729b53698b5e4a3ef3f
8e75241ddc1b6d2efccc42c4822af8ff13b824a1e792011f80e0debe0099b121
b09bce085a2bbc1c0498baf3f75b48f8c86db132ebfc64d72b300f47b7435e89
dc546dc992b31b3927e63cefbfd2716ca016ca238f6142cf16e27b240b0d7bb9
f2bf20e7bb482d27da8f19aa0f8bd4927746a65300929b99166867074a38a4b4

Domain
customermgmt.net