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Announcements
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Event
Think Like an Attacker: Understanding Cybercriminals & Nation-State Threat Actor
| Nov 16 Virtual Event <REGISTER NOW>
PreviousNext

Threat Intelligence

3 MIN READ

News



WATCH OUT: ATTACKERS ARE HIDING MALWARE IN 'BROWSER UPDATES'

Updating your browser when prompted is a good practice, just make sure the
notification comes from the vendor themselves.
Nate Nelson
Contributing Writer, Dark Reading
October 17, 2023
Source: Tada Images via Shutterstock
PDF


Threat actors are using cybersecurity best practices against you, hiding malware
inside of fake browser updates.



They do so by seeding legitimate but vulnerable websites with malicious
JavaScript. Upon loading, the code presents users with convincing browser update
notifications, masking dangerous payloads.

According to a Oct. 17 report from Proofpoint, the trend began with one threat
actor, TA569, and it has since been adopted by at least four different threat
clusters, in what appears to be a growing and intractable new trend.

"TA569 has been very active for quite some time, and I've seen how difficult it
has been for customers to understand and remediate the threat on their own,"
says Daniel Blackford, senior manager of threat research at Proofpoint. Because
it's so effective, he adds, "other threat actors have absolutely piggybacked on
it."




MALICIOUS CODE, HIDDEN IN HONEST WEBSITES

Though they may vary in the particulars, each of the four threat clusters
tracked by Proofpoint follow largely the same script.



First, the actors take advantage of a legitimate but vulnerable website,
injecting their own malicious JavaScript code.

"It's generally very opportunistic. We have seen it across basically every
industry: media, local sports associations — like kids' soccer groups — software
companies, in some cases," Blackford says.

It might be an unpatched vulnerability, or a WordPress misconfiguration that
provides the opening, "but it doesn't always have to be the website itself. It
can be any assets that are imported into the website — any type of styling
template, media player, or pretty much any third-party code," he says.

When an end user loads the website, the attackers' script runs alongside the
rest of the site's various assets. Its job is to refer traffic to an
attacker-controlled domain.




THE FAKE BROWSER UPDATE LURE

From here, Blackford explains, "the Web inject is going to take some information
about your system — you're coming from this geographic location, you're using
this browser version. It can determine whether you're in some type of virtual
environment or not. And if you pass all of the criteria, then it's going to
reach out to that backend server and pull in the fake Update page."

The update lures are designed to look like they're coming from the browser's
developers, with a clean look and relevant iconography. The following
screenshots, courtesy of the security researcher Jerome Segura, capture fake
updates from TA569 and another cluster, "FakeSG," also known as "RogueRaticate"
(see below).

If a user falls for the trap and clicks "Update," they download malware to their
computer.

If the attacker is TA569, for example, a user will download its signature
"SocGholish" initial access malware. In the past, SocGholish has been used as a
primer for ransomware, including WastedLocker, LockBit, Drydex, Hive, and more.




















HOW TO AVOID FAKE BROWSER UPDATES

Employees and otherwise educated civilians are taught to avoid links and
attachments in unrecognized emails or text messages. They might know to avoid a
seedy-looking link, but what about a notification coming from their browser?

To suss out a real update from a fake one, Blackford urges users to pay
attention to how their trusted websites and browsers typically behave, and
whether anything happens that doesn't align with the usual pattern.

"Nine times out of 10, I'll go to my kid's soccer league website and see: okay,
we've got a match against some other school on Wednesday, and nothing happens.
And then one time, all of a sudden, I'm redirected to a page that says I'm using
an old version of Chrome, click this button to update. That difference in
pattern should be the trigger," he says, while admitting that "it's not easy to
spot. But that's also why bad guys continue to make money hand over fist."

In the end, users shouldn't be spooked from maintaining their cybersecurity
hygiene. "Updating your browser is a good security practice," Blackford
maintains, "and I strongly suggest that people do it."

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