Powerful FinSpy Spyware Found Targeting iOS and Android Users in Myanmar

Jul 10, 2019

One of the most powerful, infamous, and advanced piece of
government-grade commercial surveillance spyware dubbed
FinSpy—also known as FinFisher ^[1]—has been discovered
in the wild targeting users in Myanmar.

Created by German company Gamma International, FinSpy is spying
software that can target various mobile platforms including iOS and
Android, we well as desktop operating systems.

Gamma Group reportedly sells its controversial FinSpy espionage
tool exclusively to government agencies across the world, but
also gained notoriety for targeting human rights activists in many
countries.
^[2]

The FinSpy implant
is capable of stealing an extensive amount of personal information
from targeted mobile devices, such as SMS/MMS messages, phone call
recordings, emails, contacts, pictures, files, and GPS location
data.

In its latest report ^[4] published today,
Kaspersky researchers revealed a cyber-espionage campaign that
involves targeting Myanmar users with the latest versions of
FinSpy
implants ^[5] for iOS and Android.

Since some advanced functionalities require FinSpy to have root
privileges on a targeted device, the implant doesn’t work properly
on iOS without jailbreaking, which can be achieved with physical
access or remotely in combination with some zero-day
vulnerabilities.

However, in the case of Android, researchers found that the
implant has been using the DirtyCow exploit to automatically gain
root privileges on an unrooted Android device, allowing attackers
to successfully infect a device remotely.

According to the researchers, the new versions of FinSpy for
both mobile operating systems are also capable of recording VoIP
calls via external apps such as Skype, WeChat, Viber, LINE, as well
as via secure messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Threema, Signal, and
Telegram.

“The module .chext targets messenger applications and hooks their
functions to exfiltrate almost all accessible data: message
content, photos, geolocation, contacts, group names, and so on. The
collected data is submitted to the local server deployed by the
main module,” the researchers say.

FinSpy also includes keylogging functionality and has also been
designed to cover up the tracks of its activities on a targeted
device.

“Since the leak in
2014 ^[6], Gamma Group has
recreated significant parts of its implants, extended supported
functionality (for example, the list of supported instant
messengers has been significantly expanded) and at the same time
improved encryption and obfuscation (making it harder to analyze
and detect implants), which made it possible to retain its position
in the market,” the researchers conclude.

While conducting their research, Kaspersky researchers detected the
updated versions of the FinSpy implants used in the wild in almost
20 countries, but “assuming the size of Gamma’s customer base; it’s
likely that the real number of victims is much higher.”

Gamma is continuously working on the updates for the FinSpy
malware, as researchers have found another version of the threat at
the time of publishing their report, and they are currently
investigating the sample.

^[3]

References

^{^}
FinFisher
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
FinSpy espionage tool
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
FinSpy implant
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
report
(securelist.com)
^{^}
FinSpy implants
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
the leak in 2014
(thehackernews.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Powerful FinSpy Spyware Found Targeting iOS and Android Users in Myanmar

References

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