FinFisher, also known as FinSpy or Wingbird, is a surveillance tool, which Kaspersky has been tracking since 2011. It is capable of gathering various credentials, file listings and deleted files, as well as various documents, livestreaming or recording data and gaining access to a webcam and microphone. Its Windows implants were detected and researched several times up to 2018 when FinFisher appeared to have gone under the radar.
After that, Kaspersky solutions detected suspicious installers of legitimate applications such as TeamViewer, VLC Media Player, and WinRAR, which contained malicious code that could not be connected to any known malware. That is, until one day they discovered a website in Burmese that contained the infected installers and samples of FinFisher for Android, helping to identify they were Trojanized with the same spyware. This discovery pushed Kaspersky researchers to investigate FinFisher further.
Unlike previous versions of the spyware, which contained the Trojan in the infected application right away, new samples were protected by two components: non-persistent Pre-validator and a Post-Validator. The first component runs multiple security checks to ensure that the device it is infecting does not belong to a security researcher. Only when the checks pass, is the Post-Validator component provided by the server – this component ensures that the infected victim is the intended one. Only then would the server command deployment of the full-fledged Trojan platform.
FinFisher is heavily obfuscated with four complex custom-made obfuscators. The primary function of this obfuscation is to slow down the analysis of the spyware. On top of that, the Trojan also employs peculiar ways to gather information. For instance, it uses the developers’ mode in browsers to intercept traffic protected with a HTTPS protocol.
Example of scheduled task properties
The researchers also discovered a sample of FinFisher that replaced the Windows UEFI bootloader – a component that launches the operating system after firmware launch along with a malicious one. This way of infection allowed the attackers to install a bootkit without the need to bypass firmware security checks. UEFI infections are very rare and generally hard to execute, they stand out due to their evasiveness and persistence. While in this case the attackers did not infect the UEFI firmware itself, but its next boot stage, the attack was particularly stealthy as the malicious module was installed on a separate partition and could control the boot process of the infected machine.
“The amount of work put into making FinFisher not accessible to security researchers is particularly worrying and somewhat impressive. It seems like the developers put at least as much work into obfuscation and anti-analysis measures as in the Trojan itself. As a result, its capabilities to evade any detection and analysis make this spyware particularly hard to track and detect. The fact that this spyware is deployed with high precision and is practically impossible to analyze also means that its victims are especially vulnerable, and researchers face a special challenge – having to invest an overwhelming amount of resources into untangling each and every sample. I believe complex threats such as FinFisher demonstrate the importance for security researchers to cooperate and exchange knowledge as well as invest in new types of security solutions that can combat such threats,” comments Igor Kuznetsov, principal security researcher at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT).
Read the full report on FinFisher on Securelist.
To protect yourself from such threats as FinFisher, Kaspersky recommends to:
For organizations’ protection, Kaspersky suggests the following:
About Kaspersky
Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company founded in 1997. Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky technologies and we help 240,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.
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