Kaspersky Lab published a new research report mapping a massive international infrastructure used to control ‘Remote Control System’ (RCS) malware implants, and identifying previously undiscovered mobile Trojans that work on both Android and iOS. These modules are part of the so-called ‘legal’ spyware tool, RCS, aka Galileo, developed by the Italian company HackingTeam.
The list of victims indicated in the new research, conducted by Kaspersky Lab together with its partner Citizen Lab, includes activists and human rights advocates, as well as journalists and politicians.
RCS infrastructure
Kaspersky Lab has been working on different security approaches to locate Galileo’s command and control (C&C) servers around the globe. For the identification process, Kaspersky Lab experts relied on special indicators and connectivity data obtained by reverse engineering existing samples.
During the latest analysis, Kaspersky Lab’s researchers were able to map the presence of more than 320 RCS C&C servers in 40+ countries. The majority of the servers were based in the United States, Kazakhstan, Ecuador, the UK and Canada.
Commenting on the latest findings, Sergey Golovanov, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said: “The presence of these servers in a given country doesn’t mean to say they are used by that particular country’s law enforcement agencies. However, it makes sense for the users of RCS to deploy C&Cs in locations they control – where there are minimal risks of cross-border legal issues or server seizures.”
RCS mobile implants
Although in the past it had been known that HackingTeam’s mobile Trojans for iOS and Android existed, nobody had actually identified them before – or noticed them being used in attacks. Kaspersky Lab’s experts have been researching the RCS malware for a couple of years now. Earlier this year they were able to identify certain samples of mobile modules that matched the other RCS malware configuration profiles in their collection. During the recent research, new variants of samples were also received from victims through the Kaspersky Lab cloud-based KSN network. In addition, the company’s experts worked closely with Morgan Marquis-Boire from Citizen Lab, who has been researching the HackingTeam malware set extensively.
Infection vectors: The operators behind the Galileo RCS build a specific malicious implant for every concrete target. Once the sample is ready, the attacker delivers it to the mobile device of the victim. Some of the known infection vectors include spearphishing via social engineering – often coupled with exploits, including zero-days; and local infections via USB cables while synchronising mobile devices.
One of the major discoveries has been learning precisely how a Galileo mobile Trojan infects an iPhone: to do so the device needs to be jailbroken. However, non-jailbroken iPhones can become vulnerable too: an attacker can run a jailbreaking tool like ‘Evasi0n’ via a previously infected computer and conduct a remote jailbreak, followed by the infection. To avoid infection risks, Kaspersky Lab’s experts recommend that you first of all don’t jailbreak your iPhone, and secondly also constantly update the iOS on your device to the latest version.
Customised spying:The RCS mobile modules are meticulously designed to operate in a discreet manner, for instance by paying close attention to the mobile device’s battery life. This is implemented through carefully customised spying capabilities, or special triggers: for example, an audio recording may start only when a victim is connected to a particular Wi-Fi network (for example, the network of a media house), or when he/she changes the SIM card, or while device is charging.
In general, the RCS mobile Trojans are capable of performing many different kinds of surveillance functions, including reporting the target’s location, taking photos, copying events from the calendar, registering new SIM cards inserted in the infected device, and interception of phone calls and messages; these include messages sent from specific applications such as Viber, WhatsApp and Skype, in addition to regular SMS texts.
Detection: Kaspersky Lab products detect the RCS/DaVinci/Galileo spyware tools as: Backdoor.Win32.Korablin, Backdoor.Win64.Korablin, Backdoor.Multi.Korablin, Rootkit.Win32.Korablin, Rootkit.Win64.Korablin, Rootkit.OSX.Morcut, Trojan.OSX.Morcut, Trojan.Multi.Korablin, Trojan.Win32.Agent, Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Korablin, Trojan-PSW.Win32.Agent, Trojan-Spy.AndroidOS.Mekir and Backdoor.AndroidOS.Criag.
About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more than 16-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 300 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
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