New Malware Threat a Warning to Banks, Customers and ATMs

Beware Cash-Out Attacks, Banking Trojans Via Malvertising and POS Memory-Scraping Malware.

The new warnings center on three types of unrelated malicious code. For starters, malware has been spotted in the wild that is being used to drain cash from ATMs in Mexico, although security researchers warn that it could go global. The Shifu banking Trojan, meanwhile, has moved beyond Japan and is now being used to target customers of four U.K. banks. Finally, the notorious Neutrino crimeware has gotten an upgrade, allowing it to scrape POS device memory and steal payment-card data.

Cash-Out Attacks: GreenDispenser Malware

The newly spotted ATM cash-out malware has been dubbed "GreenDispenser," by cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, which says that while it has only seen the malware used to "cash out" ATMs in Mexico, the malicious code could soon spread to other countries "GreenDispenser provides an attacker [with] the ability to walk up to an infected ATM and drain its cash vault," Proofpoint security researcher Thoufique Haq says in a blog post. "When installed, GreenDispenser may display an 'out of service' message on the ATM, but attackers who enter the correct PIN codes can then drain the ATM's cash vault and erase GreenDispenser using a deep-delete process, leaving little if any trace of how the ATM was robbed." A deep delete in this case means that the malware not only deletes itself, but also employs Microsoft's sdelete to make it much more difficult for any malware-related bits and bytes to be recovered via later digital forensic analysis.

The malware resembles the PadPin - a.k.a. Tyupkin - ATM malware that first surfaced in March 2014, and which could be used to make an ATM dispense all of its money, in what's known as a "jackpotting" or cash-out attack, Proofpoint says, adding that it believes that installing the malware requires physical access to an ATM. Like PadPin, GreenDispenser is designed to interact with a set of standard programming interfaces, or APIs, that are built into most ATM host computers and components, known as XFS - which stands for "extensions for financial services"

Malvertising Attacks Now Serve Shifu Banking Trojan

The banking malware known as Shifu - after the Japanese word for thief - has returned, and is no longer just targeting Japanese banks. In a Sept. 25 blog post, the French researcher who maintains the Malware Don't Need Coffee blog, who goes by the name Kafeine, warns that in recent days, the malware has been spotted targeting four U.K. banks: Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds Bank and TSB. To date, it's not clear how many banking customers' systems may have been infected with the malware.

In August, IBM reported that it first saw Shifu being used for in-the-wild attacks, beginning at least in April. But Kafeine says that after cross-referencing his findings on Sept. 24 with security researchers at Fox-IT and Dell SecureWorks, they found that collectively they had been tracking Shifu since September 2014. "We were using a 'non public' name to talk about it," Kafeine reports.

In the United Kingdom, Shifu is being spread via malvertising attacks, Kafeine says. To date, it's not clear if these attacks are part of a campaign that has successfully served malicious advertising via multiple popular sites, including dating sites Plenty of Fish and Match.com

Neutrino Malware Targets POS Devices

Meanwhile, upgraded Neutrino - a.k.a. Kasidet - crimeware toolkit malware is also now targeting POS devices, report researchers RonJay Caragay and Michael Marcos at information security firm Trend Micro. Previously, the crimeware toolkit - which competes with Angler - was known in part for its ability to facilitate distributed denial of service attacks.

In a Sept. 24 blog post, Trend Micro says that new research has found that Neutrino version 2.9, which debuted in March, included for the first time the ability to steal credit card details - by "scraping" the RAM of infected devices, via a feature referred to as "ccsearch." But in July, it says, a cracked edition of version 3.6 of Neutrino - which had previously only been available via cybercrime markets, for a price - was leaked onto underground forums, meaning it is now available for free.

Trend Micro - which is headquartered in Japan - reports that based on data gathered from its users' antivirus software, the greatest number of recent Neutrino infections have been seen in Japan, followed by the United Kingdom, Taiwan, France and the United States. It warns that it saw a 1,288 percent spike in related malware detections between May and June, even before the malware became available for free in July. Neutrino, the security firm says, is designed to infect Windows systems via removable drives and network folders, and gives attackers the ability to use capture keystrokes and screenshots from infected systems, copy clipboard data, launch a remote shell, launch DDoS attacks, as well as steal data from POS device memory.

"Upgrading old malware to include POS RAM-scraping capabilities is a new technique in the threat landscape, but it's not surprising, given how lucrative stolen payment card data is," Trend Micro says. Furthermore, the release of the cracked, free version of Neutrino continues to lower the barriers to entry for payment-card-seeking criminals. "Scoring this tool is basically finding a valuable tool in a bargain bin and ending up not having to even pay for it," Trend Micro says