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Hackers abuse LinkedIn DMs to plant malware

Source: SAMI, 13/05/2019

In a blog post, the firm said hackers establish a relationship with
potential victims by abusing LinkedInâ€™s direct messaging service.
In follow-up emails, the actor pretends to be from a staffing company
with an offer of employment. In many cases, the actor supports
campaigns with fake websites that impersonate legitimate staffing
companies. â€œThese websites, however, host the malicious payloads. In
other cases, the actor uses a range of malicious attachments to
distribute More_eggs,â€ the company said.
What is malware?
After a week, hackers then send a direct email to the targetâ€™s work
address reminding the recipient about the prior attempt to
communicate on LinkedIn.
â€œIt uses the targetâ€™s professional title, as it appears on LinkedIn,
as the subject, and often suggests the recipient click on a link to
see the noted job description. In other cases, this actor used an
attached PDF with embedded URLs or other malicious attachments,â€
Proofpoint added.
The URLs link to a landing page that spoofs a real talent and
staffing management company, using stolen branding to enhance the
legitimacy of the campaigns. This page then kicks off the download of
the malicious Word document that then attempts to download and
execute the â€œMore_eggsâ€ payload if the recipient has enabled macros.
â€œThese campaigns demonstrated considerable variability, with the
actor frequently changing delivery methods and more,â€ the researchers
added.
They said that hackers are turning away from very large-scale â€œspray
and prayâ€ campaigns to focus more on focus on persistent infections
with downloaders, RATs, bankers, and other malware.
The researchers warned: â€œWe can expect more threat actors to adopt
approaches that improve the effectiveness of their lures and increase
the likelihood of high-quality infections.`

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