{"id":47737,"date":"2016-02-25T11:18:22","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T19:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=47737"},"modified":"2025-06-02T19:30:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T02:30:28","slug":"malicious-forums-turn-amateur-hackers-into-cybercriminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/malicious-forums-turn-amateur-hackers-into-cybercriminals\/","title":{"rendered":"Malicious Forums Turn Amateur Hackers Into Cybercriminals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Security researchers are aware of forums that offer downloads of malicious software\u00a0such as keyloggers and remote access tools. Some inexperienced hackers may visit these forums and decide to chase the money and create a malicious agenda.<\/p>\n<p>The following is a snippet from\u00a0a popular hacking forum.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47740\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od007.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od007\" width=\"986\" height=\"243\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od007.png 986w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od007-300x74.png 300w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od007-768x189.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 986px) 100vw, 986px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We recently received a submission with the filename 17_02_16~_HKL_Purchase_Order.ace. This file contained another file with a .scr (screen saver) extension. The extracted file was a keylogger\/password stealer known as\u00a0KeyBase.<\/p>\n<p>KeyBase\u00a0comes in a kit:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47741\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od005.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od005\" width=\"485\" height=\"587\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od005.png 485w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od005-248x300.png 248w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 485px) 100vw, 485px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The KeyBase kit offers various configuration options. The password option allows the user to steal passwords from various mail clients\/browsers and other popular applications. These kits make it very easy for anyone with little to no skill to create malicious programs.<\/p>\n<h2>We replicated the sample and navigated to the control server:<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47755\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od002-2.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od002\" width=\"786\" height=\"680\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od002-2.png 786w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od002-2-300x260.png 300w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od002-2-768x664.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 786px) 100vw, 786px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We noticed that it had a very specific welcome message, so we decided to do some searching.<\/p>\n<p>We found the username\u00a0shown\u00a0on the control\u00a0server\u00a0had been registered on several malicious forums. Upon further investigation we found this actor had downloaded several malicious kits and probably got the builder for KeyBase from one of these sites. The activity on some sites dated to 2013.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47739\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od008.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od008\" width=\"702\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od008.png 702w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od008-300x149.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We next tried to find out if this actor\u00a0was involved in any past malicious activities. We looked at how\u00a0the actor tried to spread the\u00a0malware and whether the filename of the .ace file was\u00a0unique. We found only\u00a0one other instance of a similar filename.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47745\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od010.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od010\" width=\"740\" height=\"162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od010.png 740w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od010-300x66.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The file we found dated back January. Upon analyzing the file, we found it to be the keylogger HawkEye. This keylogger is very easy to find on these malicious sites.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a screen shot of Version 3 of the malicious builder:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47738\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od009.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od009\" width=\"621\" height=\"507\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od009.png 621w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od009-300x245.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 621px) 100vw, 621px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We dived deeper and found the email address associated with the hacking forum accounts. We found five domains that\u00a0were registered using this email address:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47757\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od011.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od011\" width=\"682\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od011.png 682w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od011-300x107.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As we wrote this post, all of these domains were down. However,\u00a0it is more than likely that these domains were or will be used for malicious purposes.<\/p>\n<p>We found a username associated with the email address on the\u00a0popular file-sharing website 4shared.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47759\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od014.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od014\" width=\"606\" height=\"359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od014.png 606w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od014-300x178.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 606px) 100vw, 606px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This user had uploaded 12 files, including a text file with nearly a half-million email addresses. This would have no doubt been used as part of a spam campaign to spread the\u00a0malware.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-47763\" src=\"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od012-1.png\" alt=\"blog_1702_od012\" width=\"281\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od012-1.png 281w, https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog_1702_od012-1-263x300.png 263w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 281px) 100vw, 281px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With all the information that we have collected, we can see that malicious forums make it easy for someone with little skill to create malware. An experienced actor would work in a much more covert way. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/siliconangle.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/27\/15-year-old-script-kiddie-arrested-in-talktalk-hacking-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">both types can be dangerous<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>McAfee detects this keylogger threat as Trojan-FHWM since DAT Version 8079.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Security researchers are aware of forums that offer downloads of malicious software\u00a0such as keyloggers and remote access tools. Some inexperienced&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":774,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[1814,76,180],"coauthors":[849,854],"class_list":["post-47737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mcafee-labs","tag-computer-security","tag-cybercrime","tag-malware"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Malicious Forums Turn Amateur Hackers Into Cybercriminals | McAfee Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Security researchers are aware of forums that offer downloads of malicious software\u00a0such as keyloggers and remote access tools. 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